Examining the Relationship among Knowledge Management, Productivity and Empowerment at Islamic Azad University

This study aimed to investigate the relationship among knowledge management, productivity and empowerment at Islamic Azad University. This applied research had a descriptive- correlational design. The statistical population of this study consisted of the administrative staff of the comprehensive, very large, and large branches of Islamic Azad University in all 14 regions who were employed in the affiliated academic branches of this university.The Cochran formula was used to estimate the required minimum sample size which came out to be 1906. Cluster sampling followed by stratified random sampling were used to select the required sample. The sampling stages were as follows:  initially, the comprehensive, very large, and large branches were selected from among various university branches. After that, in proportion to the number of staff in each branch, a certain proportion of the staff were selected and were provided with the questionnaires. In order to collect the data, Sallis and Jones’ Knowledge Management Questionnaire, Employee Productivity Questionnaire based on Hershey and Goldsmith’s ACHIEVE model, and Thomas and Velthouse’s Empowerment Questionnaire (1990) were used. To analyze the data, the researchers used Structural Equation Modeling. The results showed that knowledge management has a direct effect on empowerment and productivity and that empowerment has an indirect impact on productivity.